


The Career-Making Scoop

by Jairissa, smutty_claus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: smutty_claus, F/M, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-16
Updated: 2010-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-13 17:02:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jairissa/pseuds/Jairissa, https://archiveofourown.org/users/smutty_claus/pseuds/smutty_claus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes getting the story of the year means making people a little uncomfortable. Who needs a dream honeymoon anyway?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Career-Making Scoop

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tosca1390](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/gifts).



> Written by Jairissa for the 2010 Smutty Claus exchange.

**To:** tosca1390  
 **From:** Your Secret Santa

>  **Title:** The Career-Making Scoop  
>  **Author:** Jairissa  
>  **Pairing:** Harry/Ginny  
>  **Summary:** Sometimes getting the story of the year means making people a little uncomfortable. Who needs a dream honeymoon anyway?  
>  **Rating:** NC-17  
>  **Length:** ~12,000 words  
>  **Warnings:** None  
>  **Author's notes:** Thanks must go to my lovely spouse for the speed typing and proof reading. And thanks, of course, to r_becca, for running this awesome fest for so many years.

 

 _So much for without a hitch. The Potter/Weasley wedding was already rushed, in a rather suspicious way, if you know what I mean. Sources say that the haphazardly planned affair was snowed out by early morning, leaving the happy couple to scramble for a new location._

 _Let's just hope the honeymoon goes a little better. Stay tuned for more as this intrepid reporter tries to follow the lovebirds around their hopefully expensive two week holiday!_

 _  
**~Squid**   
_

*

As bad ideas went, planning a wedding in the middle of winter probably wasn't the worst, but it certainly didn't rank among the best. Harry couldn't remember why they had decided to do so in the first place, it all seemed to have formed by itself. He had proposed so close to the end of Ginny's seventh year and they hadn't wanted a long engagement. Then somehow the planning had taken a few months, and by the time it had come together properly it was the middle of January, there was snow covering most of London and they were saying their vows in the basement of a Muggle church because it was the only place big enough to fit them all.

Ginny had been the one to plan the wedding. The fact that it had not gone at all according to plan, Harry hoped, would be enough to allow her to forgive him for the fact that the first part of his responsibility, the honeymoon, looked set to end the same way.

"Er," Harry said, the old fashioned key opening the door. "This isn't what I booked..."

He could hear Ginny's mumbled _I hope not_. The picture in the brochure had shown a spacious, light-filled room decorated in soft shades of blue and silver. Perhaps that had been the case several hundred years ago. Now the paint was chipping, the furniture was threadbare and it smelled as though he had discovered the secret brothel for the majority of the world's population of pygmy goats.

"I'll go talk to the manager," Harry said resolutely, dropping their bags and wheeling around. Ginny grabbed his arm, tugging him closer.

"No, no, it's fine," she insisted gamely. "Besides, you heard what they said downstairs. They're booked out with the snow. You said it was just for one night. We can live with it that long, we'll be gone in the morning."

Harry hadn't thought too much about his wedding night, but Molly, Fleur and Hermione had each pointed out that girls did and Harry had done his best to make it nice. "This was meant to be the honeymoon suite," he said, somewhat grumpily. He didn't want to mention how much he had paid for the privilege of this room and he would have appreciated some form of 'warning: smells like goat' when he had booked it.

"Well, it will just have to be the awesome suite instead," Ginny declared, taking his hand and leading him gently into the room. Harry shook his head in frustration and she drew closer, wrapping her arms around his neck. "It's _all right_ , Harry. We've got two weeks of luxury holiday ahead of us, I'm sure I'll get my fill of it. Tonight, all I need is you."

A smile tugged at the corner of Harry's mouth as he bent his face down to Ginny's. Her kiss was cool and sweet, tasting of their chocolate wedding cake, strawberry infused champagne and the biting snow outside their window. When they broke away he looked down at her stupidly, fingers still tangled in her bright hair.

Ginny grinned, quick and cheeky, running her hands down his chest. Harry took a deep breath and prepared to kiss her again when he felt a pressure against his stomach and felt himself stumbling backwards, falling onto the dusty, stained bed. He gaped at his new wife as she pulled off the thick wool cloak that had kept her warm during the journey here.

"Bit slow on the uptake there, Harry," she teased as she lay on her side beside him, tugging until he faced her. Harry gave in easily, letting her kiss him until they were breathless, one of her hands threaded through his hair, one resting on his back and the other teasing slowly at his neck.

It took Harry a moment, distracted as he was, to process that there was something a little wrong with Ginny having three distinctly different hands.

"Oh my God," Harry said, shoving at the weights against him as he hauled himself off the bed. He saw Ginny lying on the floor in confusion and he grabbed for her, half carrying, half dragging them both across the room.

"Harry," Ginny said reproachfully as he put her down. Harry pointed wordlessly at the bed, an object that seemed to have sprouted an army of tentacles that it was waving threateningly at them. They both gaped, Ginny recovering more quickly than he did. She ground her teeth for a moment looking at it, then shrugged resolutely. "Well, we're not sleeping on the bed. Do you want the couch or the armchair?"

Harry, not really wanting either but rather glad she was calmer than he, chose the armchair so that Ginny at least would be able to stretch out properly; he couldn't imagine it would be at all comfortable to sleep in a wedding dress. The same could be said for dress robes, it appeared, and he shifted around as quietly as he could to try find a position which didn't tug, pinch, pull or yank. Ginny was doing the same, sighing quietly every few minutes.

"Oh, screw this," she muttered and came towards him in the candlelight neither of them had the courage to extinguish, holding her wedding dress up to her knees. Harry held his arms out silently and she spread her legs to straddle his lap, her arms curling around his neck, face pressing into the curve of his throat. "It's our wedding night. The least we can do is spend our wedding night together."

With Ginny pressed against him his clothes seemed bearable and the chair no longer pressed painfully against his back. With his face buried in Ginny's apple-scented hair he drifted slowly off to sleep.

*

When Harry woke it was out of a dream of lying in an apple tree grove, slowly inhaling blades of grass until he choked, desperately struggling to breath as a chorus of drums serenaded him in the distance. He had to open his eyes to dispel the illusion; the apple grass was Ginny's hair and the drums were nothing more than the pounding of the door.

"Sir?" A loud female voice called. "Sir, you're going to have to come downstairs now, you're out of time. Sir, can you hear me?"

"We hear you!" Ginny yelled against his chest. Harry held still, stroking her back as she slowly roused herself, knowing from their rare, snatched nights together that she was not an early riser. She looked up at him with exhausted eyes. "I hate this place."

"I know," Harry said. "It seems they feel the same way. We'd better go before they come back."

Ginny huffed, climbing off his lap. Harry felt the instant bite of cold and realised indignantly that, in a further insult, they hadn't bothered to heat the room. Ginny shivered and Harry wrapped his cloak around her shoulders, smiling softly. "Here," he said, quietly. "We can change at the next hotel, no point wasting more time here. You look beautiful like that anyway."

Her expression softened and she placed a soft kiss on his cheek. "Thank you," she said quietly, cramming her feet back into her shoes. Flipping her hair, she shrugged, smiling. "Of course I knew that anyway."

Harry laughed, dragging them both into the hallway. The warmth of the corridor brought with it a wave of fresh air and he drank it in greedily. He was still sucking it down like a drug when they reached the front desk with the same overly happy clerk that had checked them in the day before.

"Ah, Mr Potter, Mrs Potter. The honeymoon suite," he said, cheerfully. "I just have to thank you for staying here! I do hope you had a wonderful time."

"Er," Harry said articulately.

"Actually," Ginny added, with words that made sense. "We would like to talk to a manager."

"Of course, ma'am. I am the manager. Would you like to fill out a testimonial for us?" The man's bright grin remained unbroken while Harry examined his head for telltale signs of mind-warping tentacles. Ginny made a brief sound of outrage, one he could best translate as _???!_.

"The bed tried to kill us," Harry blurted, the man's effusive joy at their presence irritating him unreasonably. "It grew tentacles and it tried to kill me and my wife. The room smelled like goats, it tried to murder us and there was no heating."

"I don’t understand," the manager said merrily. He paged furiously through a leather bound book at the counter. The only hint Harry had of surprise was a twitch around the eye. "Ah. Oh dear. I really must apologise."

"Oh dear?" Ginny asked testily. She snatched for the book, appropriating it with the same speed that made her a demon on the pitch. "Give me that."

"There’s been a terrible mishap," the manager protested. Harry echoed him skeptically, craning his neck to get a better look at the appointment book.

 **January 16th - Harry Potter - Honeymoon Suite _(wedding)_**   
**January 16th - Harold Porter - Tentacle Room _(zoological research)_**

"Harold Porter," Ginny whispered, snorting. Harry re-read with a "Tentacle room" with horrified fascination. "You. This could only happen to you."

"It’s not my fault," Harry muttered, shoving the book back towards the manager, who seemed ecstatic that the situation had been unravelled.

"Now, as an apology, I’d be happy to present you with a complimentary night at our fine establishment," he said and Harry wondered whether it was legal to strangle someone for excessive cheerfulness.

"No" Harry and Ginny yelled in unison. They glanced at each other rapidly and for the first time the man behind the counter looked crestfallen.

"I just mean," Ginny added soothingly. "That we’re going overseas today and couldn’t possibly take advantage of your generous offer."

She was tugging Harry away by the arm before anyone had a chance to say more, beaming brightly over her shoulder. "Thanks so much!" She called back. "We’ll be sure to tell everyone all about our stay here!"

As the stormed out the door they heard a tremulous voice call out behind them. "Excuse me, young man! Yes, you at the desk. I don’t know what you’re playing at, but there was nothing at all unusual about my room. I must warn you, I shall still charge you the full price..."

The door slammed shut and Ginny looked at Harry darkly. "Just tell me that wasn’t revenge for the wedding."

"Of course not!" Harry said indignantly.

"So I can expect that, wherever we go next, our bed will not try to eat us?" She clarified.

"Not as far as I know," Harry said bitterly. He hadn’t planned for it the first time, either.

"Thank Merlin for that," his wife said, linking her hand with his.

*

 _Lastly, in society news, we at the Daily Prophet have learned exclusively that the wedding between the boy who lived and the Harpies’ star player ended less with a bang than with a whimper. After a last minute change of venue for the ceremony, the happy couple’s wedding night ended in a celibate celebration featuring a tentacle-sporting bed._

 _A fetish for Potter or Weasley? Stay tuned and we’ll find out for you..._

 _  
**~Squid**   
_

*

"I know I didn’t trust that manager," Harry spat, throwing down the paper. Ginny rolled her eyes, glaring at it malevolently. Harry had suspected _something_ as they had boarded the train, disgusted glares and amused fascination fighting for dominance on the faces of the many other passengers staring at them. It had been morbid curiosity that had led him to purchase the paper and now he very much wished that he hadn’t.

"Just wait until we get home," Ginny growled, kicking at the paper as though it, too, was going to grow tentacles. "I’ll be demanding more than his damned refund."

"I’m really sorry, Ginny," Harry said, flattening his hair as he watched his reflection in the window. "I didn’t-"

" _Don’t_ ," Ginny said forcefully. "Just don’t."

Harry’s eyes continued to follow the scenery outside the train window, wanting to say something and equally unable to find the words.

"You know what the worst thing is?" Ginny offered finally.

"What?" Harry asked monosyllabically.

"That they were right about the whole celibacy thing." Her voice was inviting and Harry shot a side-long look at her tempting grin.

"There are too many windows here," he said roughly, damning the whole Wizard Rail line for not just installing curtains. Ginny’s eyebrow rose and she stood slowly, leaning down to brush her lips across his ear.

"You have no imagination."

Harry furrowed his brows in confusion, accepting the outstretched hand. He followed her easily through the automatically opening train door. Outside there were whispers and giggles, and an unexpected chasing after Harry’s bewildered form. Even here, halfway to another country, he couldn’t escape the attention. He'd heard of a place called Guam once. Where was it? Would there be an Auror department there he could quietly transfer to?

"Mr Potter?" A squeaky voice asked from his elbow.

"Not now," Ginny said, with a dark glare that frightened even Harry a little. They stopped just outside the bathroom and she smiled, leaning closer to him and nuzzling his neck. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "When they’re not looking, come join me."

Harry’s eyes widened and he jerked backwards. Ginny ginned impishly, closing the door so carefully he barely heard the double click of the locks being clicked twice; one to lock and one to unlock.

It took a while, time filled with photos, autographs and a disturbing amount of bare, wrinkled skin. Harry had hoped many things in his life; the fervent desire that he never again crossed paths with Gerald Elsbeth Winston again was moving very quickly to the top of his list.

He was saved only by the shrieking rumour that started somewhere in the next carriage, proclaiming the existence of Pierre, rock and oh please won’t you roll with me, Lucien, favourite of the fans, mongrel of the media and Britain’s best beater. He sighed in relief; Harry may be many things but until he became a Quidditch star who released several number one albums and saved kittens from possessed trees in his spare time, there would always be at least one more person more popular than himself.

"It took you long enough," Ginny said, barely concealed laughter in her voice.

Harry, who had been carefully locking and spelling the door, turned around in indignation. "I’ve been viciously attacked..."

He gaped at his wife, barely dressed in a turquoise underdress-like thing, one strand of sunset hair twirled around a finger. "Let me make it better," she cooed. Harry smiled slowly and took the two steps that constituted the entirety of the bathroom, resting his hand against her hip.

"Yeah," he agreed, leaning down to kiss her hair. "Better."

"Is that a request or a statement?" Ginny asked, tilting her head coquettishly.

"Statement," Harry assured her. "Definitely a statement."

Her grin matched his own. He started to unbutton his own shirt, slow deliberate movements turning hurried as the confined space caused her barely clothed form to press against him in a variety of interesting ways. Ginny giggled breathlessly and went for his pants, dropping them to the ground before he had finished with the top button of his unexpectedly frustrating shirt.

Batting his hands away, Ginny took over the arduous task for him and Harry entertained himself by pushing aside the thin strap of her silky top-thing and kissing the warm, shivering skin.

"Oh, damnit," Ginny muttered and Harry pulled back quickly.

"I’m sorry," he said hesitantly, slightly confused at her stern, flushed face. "Did I...?"

"No," Ginny said darkly, glaring at his shirt. "This button’s stuck. Hold on, stay still."

Harry obeyed, freezing in place. Ginny shuffled back, hopping up on the tiny sink. She smiled and tugged him forward by his collar until he rested against the wood between her spread legs. "That’s better," she said, turning her focus back to his button and tugging at it ferociously. "I just need to..."

The glass shattered in a prettily high melody. He instinctively grabbed for Ginny, twisting them both around and flinging them to the floor determined not to let her get cut. The door, almost entirely unlike floor in every way but for the sound of it, splintered under their combined weight, depositing them both on the tattered carpet in a shower of glass shards and wood chips.

"Smooth," said the impossibly handsome face of Pierre Lucien, calmly cradling a small kitten in his gigantic hands. "I prefer my cabin, myself. You know the windows blacken when thing start getting interesting, right?"

*

Ginny was still rubbing her back and muttering uncomplimentary things about the spells on certain transport vehicles and the amount of fans who listened to her opinions when the Muggle taxi he had rented pulled up in front of the first official stop on their honeymoon. He had thought a French building modelled after a medieval castle would be romantic; at the time he hadn’t realised just how many stairs would be involved.

"Crap," Ginny sighed wearily. Harry had to agree.

The Wizarding world was wonderful: Harry had never been more in love with it than in the moment that he could, with a flick of his wrist, send their luggage flying to their rooms, turn the stairs into an escalator and make his way through the heavily protected door with nothing more than a prearranged code phrase: _The Chudley Cannons will lose and we will sow the soil with their salty tears._ (Ginny had chosen it when he has casually asked what the password to their house should be.)

"I wish we’d import more Muggle technology sometimes," Ginny said fervently as she examined the bed. She poked it experimentally with her wand, looking as suspicious when it didn’t move as she had when the last one had.

"D’you think we should risk it?" Harry asked, only joking a little. Ginny slanted a glance at the couch and sighed softly.

"At this point I don’t think it'd matter if it ate me," she said wearily. "As long as I was happily asleep while it did it."

Harry nodded, helping her strip off her jacket and turned down the bed so that she could position herself on it, turning until she found the least painful way to lay.

"Gin, I’m really sorry," Harry said, flattening his hair in frustration. "I..."

"I know, Harry," she said, patting the space beside her on the bed. Harry lay down obediently, burrowing his head in the soft downy pillow. "Next time, just let me save myself. You worry about pulling your pants back up."

Harry groaned and wondered whether it was still too late to elope.

*

 _Looks like the wedding of the year remains unconsummated. Not without the best of British try, though. Wizard Rail has claimed they won’t be seeking damages over a destroyed bathroom. "Consider it a wedding present," Clement Tonkins, PR executive, has graciously said._

 _What concerns this paper is the question of how the bathroom ended up in such a condition. Did Potter’s famous temper get the best of him again? This reporter is a little worried about the former Miss Weasley’s wellbeing, being married to one of the world’s most volatile wizards._

 _Whatever the case, it has been reported that after their adventurous day the couple went straight to bed, leaving their union, as yet, entirely innocent._

 _  
**~Squid**   
_

*

"Not here, too," Harry said grumpily, tossing the paper in the direction of the bin and missing entirely. "I paid the manager a month’s salary to keep this out of the papers."

Ginny choked on her coffee, spilling a few drops of pale brown on her white jumper and swearing passionately. "You..." She shook her head, adopting that half smile she always had when she found him both perplexing and amusing. "I wouldn’t blame the manager just yet. We did forget to close the blinds, if you’ll notice."

Harry glanced at the window. A gaggle of fans giggled while a lone cleaning lady blanched and ducked behind the door. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, excessively glad the he had dressed himself fully after his shower rather than partaking of the free hotel robes that suddenly seemed more tailored to house elves than they did an adult.

"Next time I’m asking for a windowless room," he decided, storming over to close the blinds. "In a basement. Filled with concrete."

"Yes, dear," Ginny said obediently, cleaning the rest of the coffee off her shirt. She folded her arms primly in her lap, looking quite pleased with herself. "Whatever you like. I wouldn’t want to provoke your temper. I fear for my life, you know."

"That’s not funny," Harry mumbled, wondering if there was a Wizarding version of a smoke alarm that would go off if he set the Prophet on fire.

"It could be true," Ginny pointed out, grabbing the paper and opening the door long enough to throw it at their spectators. "Next time you try to rescue me you might not get stopped by a door."

Harry was beginning to wish he’d been the one to hit the door, especially if it had broken his neck in the process.

"So what are our plans for today?" Ginny asked, pushing her plate away. "The Louvre? I hear their Wizarding art department is amazing."

"Er..." Harry said. He hadn’t planning on anything to actually do anything on their honeymoon. He had assumed that it would be two weeks of not getting out of bed much and occasionally going to dinner or Euro Disney. "Yeah, that sounds good."

"Great," Ginny said brightly. Harry was almost about to suggest they delay for an hour or two, just long enough to make _sure_ that the bed wasn’t planning to eat them when they returned for the evening. It had managed to avoid doing so up until now, surely he could persuade whatever demons that might reside there to wait a little while longer.

"Oh my _God_ , what if he takes off his _shirt_?"

Harry zipped his jumper up to his chin. "Can we please go now?" he asked plaintively.

"I suppose I’ve seen it all before." Ginny agreed, eyeing his clothes with speculation.

*

"And of course, this piece by Leonardo da Vinci is one of our most important works. It shows some of his early attempts to map the ways magic resided in and influenced the bodies of Wizards. If you’ll look over here you can also see some of the early sketches..."

Harry saw the sketches, waving cheerfully at him. He had seen the happy oil paintings, the morose watercolours and, in one case, an exceptionally proud sculpture that he felt Ginny’s eyes lingered on far too long to be mere curiosity. By the time he’d reached the last exhibit he felt downright insecure.

"Do you think they sell prints in the gift shop?" Ginny asked. Harry barely prevented himself from looking at her in wounded indignation. "It’s rather inspiring."

"Hey!" he protested loudly, to the apparent fascination of the other good god how people many were there? on the tour. Looking was one thing; wanting a permanent comparison was entirely another.

Ginny, cruel witch that she was, smiled graciously at the outraged guide and sighed sadly, a ‘what can I do? He was raised in a closet’ expression adequately conveying her many and painful burdens. "Gin!" Harry hissed, feeling victimised by the disapproving old lady clucking her tongue at them.

"Sorry," Ginny said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "I can’t help myself. It’s an ingrained response to boredom. I blame Fred and George."

There was the pause, an established tradition, at the forbidden name. It wasn’t that they’d wanted to forget Fred’s name. It had been too hard at first; Molly had burst into tears whenever it was uttered and they had all been too busy trying to help her cope. Then the mention of it had stopped their hard won cheerfulness when they had gathered together. Finally, so used to not speaking it, the name had become private, internalised, so that saying it out loud had become almost obscene.

"I thought you wanted to come here?" Harry protested, grasping for words to fill the silence.

"I thought you wanted to come here." Ginny snapped back and they both stopped in shock, perplexed. "Why would I have wanted to come here?"

"You suggested it," Harry pointed out, reasonably he thought. He couldn’t recall ever mentioning it an art gallery, Wizarding or otherwise.

"There was a guidebook on the table, opened to this. I thought you were trying to tell me something," Ginny said, also reasonably.

"A what?" Harry said dumbly, running his hands through his hair. Merlin, he’d told Hermione not to send anything like this. He knew her: any tips she would have chosen to give them would have been steeped with history and culture. They would also have made him want to claw his eyes out with a toothpick from boredom. "Gin, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guidebook. I know I didn’t pack one."

Ginny’s eyes sparkled for a moment as she burst into laughter. "So," she said between guffaws. "What you’re telling me, is that we’ve been hiking through a museum all morning and neither of us have wanted to be here at all?"

"Yeah," Harry said glumly, feeling the miles of corridors behind them as an ache in his legs. "I guess so."

"Right," Ginny said determinedly. "Right. Let’s get out of here, then. There’s a Quidditch match on and I want to see France squash Slovakia in time for the World Cup."

"I think I’ll go for Slovakia," Harry said, just to be contrary. "I love their mascot."

*

"That was the worst match I’ve ever seen," Ginny said moodily as Harry dragged her, as gently as dragging could ever be done, down quiet Muggle streets. He stayed to the shadows as much as he could, vowing never again to wear a bright orange shirt in public. "It’s a travesty! A disgrace to the game."

"You’re a just upset you supported the wrong team," Harry informed her, tugging them both into the space behind a garbage can and kissing her thoroughly. The sound of footsteps, a herd of thundering reporters, went past them and they both gave a sigh of relief as they broke their kiss. "Why are we being chased by Quidditch reporters anyway? I didn’t think a French sports reporter would even know what I looked li- OW!"

He glared at Ginny in accusation, her balled fist waving threateningly in front of his face. "They’re following me, flubber-brain," she said through gritted teeth. "Remember me? Quidditch ingenue? Hottest Harpie of the new millennium? Probable captain of the _national team_?"

"Oh yeah," Harry said sheepishly. "That makes sense."

"Good to know," she said dryly, taking his sleeve in her free hand. "Come on, forgetful. Let’s see if we can get you to remember how to get back to our hotel."

Harry wasn’t _that_ forgetful, something he was thankful for (if only to escape the dumpster. What did people put in those things?) and it only took a few wrong turns to get them on the right path. He still stayed with the quieter roads. Quidditch queen or boy saviour, he didn’t particularly wish to be captured in glorious photograph with a banana peel and half a steak dinner on his shoulder.

"This isn’t the right way," Ginny said flatly as Harry pulled them to a stop behind a nondescript brown building. She had been saying that for twenty minutes. Harry suspected that she had only followed him so that she could point out the difference in their innate senses of direction.

"It’s the back entrance," Harry said positively. The fact that the back entrance was three blocks from the front entrance, smelled of hippogriff shampoo and was labelled in the French for "Madame Marion’s House of Pleasure" was billed as an additional security feature, for emergencies.

"If this is just an excuse to get me involved in some filthy orgy with a Veela, I’m warning you now, I’ll tell my mother," Ginny told him sternly. Harry gape at her and she met his gaze sternly. "Don’t think I won’t. I was at the World Cup, remember."

"It’s the back entrance," Harry repeated tonelessly, politely not pointing our that her brother had been the worse offender. "Look."

The promised look as he opened the door wasn’t quite as spectacular as he’d expected. They appeared to have walked into a cross between a medieval feast and a regional meeting of M.E.S.S. (Mistreated Elves Survival Society, an offshoot of S.P.E.W. that was currently attempting, for the second year in a row, to recruit its first member). Each elf was carrying a tray piled high with food and wearing what appeared to be flowing lace tea towels.

"What is honoured guest doing at this entrance?" One of the elves squealed, distressed, in heavily accented English. "Honoured guests are not meant to be coming through the kitchens!"

"We were being chased by rabid photographers," Harry said cheerfully. Sure, it was the kitchen, but the crests made it clear it was the kitchen to their own hotel, which still made him right. "We had to use the emergency entrance."

He steered them through the kitchens as he spoke, happily ignoring his wife’s grumbles. Admittedly, the corridor beyond was no more inspiring, but it contained stairs, which was the first step towards their second floor room.

The green carpet at the top of the expected. The groups of people huddled around various places in the wall and a blatant lack of doors was not.

"Where’s our door?" Ginny asked fretfully. Harry put a comforting, he hoped, arm over her shoulders. Harry, personally, was more concerned that the lack of door meant a lack of _room_ and he watched the laughing, mocking and quite fragrantly French people with a sinking suspicion.

The biggest group, at least, seemed to have some people who spoke English within it and it was towards them that Harry gravitated. They seemed to be engaged in a strange form of gambling that involved bets and odds on such things as "reverse cowgirl", "sixty-nine" and "doggy". He steered them closer and observed that, in the space between two people, what they seemed to be betting on was a window into a room.

 _Their_ room.

Harry was sure it was. There was their luggage, the bed they had left dishevelled earlier that morning and yes, the guidebook on the table that Ginny had used to drag them into a painful flashback of one of Binns' classes.

"What the hell?" Harry asked angrily. The crowd turned around to face him.

"Merde," one of them said.

"I think that’s an understatement," Ginny agreed dangerously.

*

It had been two days since the wedding. They had spent that time in two different countries and had stayed in two separate hotels. Harry was about to have a fight with a second hotel manager.

He was beginning to believe their marriage was cursed. At least the Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers had managed a year each, at this point he would settle for a month. A week, even, if that was all that was on offer.

"Ah, Mr and Mrs Potter," the manager greeted them grandly, his accent so thick as to be nearly unintelligible. "You wished to speak with me?"

"What the hell were all those people doing staring into our room?" Ginny exploded beside him. Harry had planned to go with the more traditional 'we would like to make a complaint' but he supposed this worked too.

"People?" The manager asked, his nostrils flaring. "What people are those? I will remind you that your agreement states that all guests must be approved by the manager."

"They’re not our people," Ginny snapped indignantly. "They’re yours. We found them in the corridor behind our suite!"

The manager stood taller, arms crossed over his chest. He sniffed so deeply that Harry felt personally offended by the disgusted expression on his face.

"I do not know what you are speaking of," the man said definitively. "We have no corridors here."

Harry placed an arm around Ginny’s waist, pulling her close. It was a good thing he had become able to withstand most physical pain; the sharp stomp on the instep of his right foot would be nearly incapacitating otherwise. He was rather glad she hadn’t thought to go for her wand.

"Oh yeah?" He asked, pointing to the hallway behind them, the one that lead to the real entrance to the rooms. "What’s that, then?"

Ginny snorted and Harry chose to take that as a sign that he had been forgiven. The manager flicked a glance to where Harry had pointed, his jaw setting itself in determination.

"We have no corridors," he repeated. Ginny, never one to be proven wrong without a fight, moved herself into the denied hall and began doing star jumps. Harry raised an eyebrow in challenge. "No corridors at all."

Ginny’s star jumps turned into splits, drawing Harry’s attention. The manager got it back when he let out an approving whistle. Harry had his wand against the man’s throat, telling himself it was solely to prevent his wife from doing the same thing, rather more viciously.

"If there are no corridors," Harry said carefully - the threat in his voice was not subtle - "you will have no problem accompanying us in a stroll down no corridors whatsoever."

Silent, the manager preceded Harry up the guest hallway and into their room. It was exactly as they had left it although he fancied he could hear a brief cheering and something about a menage-a-trois.

"I see no corridor," the manager said condescendingly. "It is a normal suite. Now if you do not mind..."

Harry raised a hand and the man went silent. He had been told more than once the expression settling on his face could have slayed the Dark Lord himself. Harry had protested most determinedly. He know that wasn’t true; he’d tried.

"Ginny?" Harry asked cheerfully, gesturing towards the wall. "Would you like to show the man?"

Ginny, less murderous now that she had a chance to hex something, used _Reducto_ to blast a hole in the back wall. Through the dust and debris they could see a gaggle of choking observers, several of them holding either notebooks or cameras. Harry looked back towards the hapless manager who appeared to have developed a painful-looking eye twitch.

"See?" The man coughed through the cloud of former wall. "There is no corridor at all."

"Oh my God," Ginny said. Harry said nothing. He was too busy trying to wrestle his wife’s wand from her hand before she killed something.

*

 _A pattern of violence is showing up in the new Potter family, although this time it was a team effort. This journalist had the privilege of seeing the carnage of himself and I have to say it was quite a sight._

 _It seems Mr Potter, never known for his smooth temper, had a small problem with the hotel. Rather than make a complaint like the rest of us mere mortals, Mr Potter saw fit to take the hotel manager hostage. For an interview with the traumatised French national, please see page 13._

 _Now I know that some of my loyal readers postulated that the tempestuous Ms Weasley would provide a calming influence on our over-emotional hero. Quite to the contrary: our Quidditch darling instead proceeded to magically destroy their luxury suite, leaving the room in pieces._

 _Sources say both parties steadfastly refuse to pay damages, leaving the already struggling hotel in even more debt. In an attempt to make up for our uncouth countrymen, the Prophet has started a fund to pay for the Boy Who Lived’s trashed hotel room. Donate by owl or directly into our account at Gringotts._

 _  
**~Squid**   
_

*

"I’m sorry," Ginny told him. Harry nodded his head in agreement, tired eyes focused on the map. He had attempted to use his wand to direct them; his exhaustion had caused it to direct them over a river, through a construction site and finally told them to walk through the lion’s enclosure at the zoo. Harry had been centimetres away from being cat food before he had given up and bought a Muggle map at a local service station. "Really sorry."

"I know," he said, snappishly. He hadn’t quite meant to be so harsh but it was 4:30 am, they were making their way to the one Wizarding hotel in Rome that claimed to have a vacancy and despite his best effort he still had bats hanging from his face.

"They’ll vanish soon," Ginny added helpfully and Harry had to ask himself whether the desire to throttle one’s spouse was an intrinsic part of marriage or whether he should contact the psychiatrist the Ministry had contracted for him after the second war and confess all his sins.

"I know," he said, cross referencing the crossroads they passed with the location of the hotel which he found, with no small measure of relief, was located just across the road and didn’t appear big enough to have a separate entrance for house elves and voyeurs.

"Want to have sex?" Ginny asked.

"I know...wait, what?" Harry’s eyes jumped to meet Ginny’s sparkling brown ones. She was pointing to an empty alley to their left, hadn’t seemed to have seen the hotel at all and it took all of Harry’s willpower not to agree. Would have, if it were any day but today and he wasn’t tired and was it really so hard to have one romantic, conventional, non-rushed night with his wife? He smiled with no small amount of relief and pointed. "Hotel’s just over there."

Ginny eyed it with distaste, twirling her wand around her fingers. "I have a bad feeling about this."

Harry tried to smile reassuringly, suspecting he came off as merely constipated. It was hard to smile when all you wanted to do was lay down in an alley with your head on a garbage can and go to sleep. "It’ll be fine, Gin. I’m really sorry about the places we’ve been to. I didn’t book this one, _we_ did. I’m sure it’ll be fine."

Ginny stopped him in the middle of the light-speckled street and kissed him softly on the mouth. "This is not your fault,", she told him, surety written on her face and he relaxed into her snow-cold embrace.

"The hotel’s over there," he told her in lieu of another apology and half-walked, half-danced her towards the entrance. She laughed in his arms and for an irrational moment Harry thought he would be happy to sleep here, in the newly fallen snow, as long as Ginny were with him.

"Let’s check in, then," she whispered saucily and Harry vowed to forget everything that had happened before as long as they could have this place, this moment. He pulled them in the door, smiling insanely, as if red hair were a fire that could light up the cold.

"Ah, of course," the concierge said ingratiatingly, her accented voice echoed almost exactly by the clerk beside her. There was a pair of centaurs checking in next to them and Harry was warmed by the reminder of how things are had changed for the better, for everyone. "You will be in room 43."

There was a pause for breath and Harry froze, reflected and then frowned. "What?"

"No, _these_ two are in 43," the concierge hissed. "I took the reservation myself! _I authorised it especially._ "

"No you didn’t!" the clerk glared, her stage whisper setting Harry’s temper on edge. "I signed in these two this morning!"

"This is this morning!" The concierge shouted, wincing. She gave Harry and Ginny a searching look, one she repeated on the centaur couple. Without a word she vanished into the back office, followed by the clerk, with a final shout of "terribly sorry! No vacancies!"

"Yes there are!" Ginny said, loudly. "You just said room 43 was free."

Harry wasn’t the fastest, he know. It often took him a great many times to grasp concept that, he was told, should have occurred to him a long time before. He counted himself lucky that he had a wife that caught on quicker. She was right. There was one room free.

Of course, he realised as the slower part of his brain caught up, his legs couldn’t quite beat a Centaur's.

"We were here first!" Ginny’s fierce voice penetrated the tense silence. "It’s our room."

"We booked it this morning," the male Centaur countered, his hooves clacking ominously against the floor. "You heard the witch."

"It still is this morning!" Harry pointed out abruptly. He distinctly remembered that; he’d just been thinking of early mornings, frost-covered kisses and sunset hair. "It’s not even five yet."

"Well, we booked at four," the female centaur insisted, pushing himself closer to her partner. Harry wanted to feel warmth, he really meant to, but right now freedom and liberty paled in comparison to the fact that these two were _stealing his hotel reservation_.

"We booked at three," Harry hissed through clenched teeth. He had no idea if that was true; it felt true and he was tired and he had failed so many times before. Couldn’t he win just this once and have the honeymoon night he had promised her just by signing the marriage certificate?

They looked at each other, all four magical beings, and Harry resisted the urge to go for his wand: it wouldn’t be fair to use that advantage against someone who had no way of countering it.

"That may be so," the female said finally in a way that made Harry feel almost bullied. "But I sorely doubt you could beat us there anyway."

Harry gaped, choked and cursed the whole concept of a service industry. It was a sham, he decided in that harried moment. No, a scam. One designed to torture him at every moment, with the possibility of intimacy, then...

"It’s all right," Ginny whispered in his ear, wicked grin settled firmly on her face. She held up a rectangle of tiny plastic, cheeks dimpling. "They won’t get anywhere without the room key."

Harry laughed. As always she was brilliant, had worked out a way out of this and...dear Merlin what was that thumping?

They raced up the stairs and Harry wished fervently that Hermione’s determination to bring some of the Muggle world into the magical one would succeed soon, with escalators. He was an Auror, he had been so fit once; what had happened?

The thumping turned out to be the centaurs: without the room key and the backup spell to bypass the door lock they had resorted to turning their backs and kicking.

The could of dust and debris was reminiscent of the last hotel. Harry put it behind them only when he saw that no matter how much damage furious hooves caused, the door steadfastly refused to open.

"You’re missing something," Ginny said gleefully. She waved the key in the air with relish. He was ready to tell her, every muscle tensed, that waving the key around wasn’t such a good idea when he saw the flash of gold on it and understood. The key was like a snitch, glowing in a desolate battlefield, and neither Harry nor Ginny had the ability to let it fly by uncaught.

"Give me that," the male snarled, abandoning his barrage on the door. The female ignored them entirely, kicking with a power that made Harry contemplate how wonderfully Centaurs would fit into the English national football team.

"No," Ginny asserted, clutching the plastic sliver to her cheek. "This is our room. I’ve dealt with tentacles, with peeping toms, flimsy doors and totally incompetent managers. I will have a bed, I don't care what you have to say about it."

Harry stared at his wife, mentally trying to calculate the many ways he needed to apologise. He hadn’t been this remorseful over the Malfoys escaping conviction, his wife’s determination of their lacklustre accommodation was that impressive.

The centaurs obviously didn’t know the story; clearly enough the determination spoke for itself.

"You have the key," he said finally, lowering his head in defeat. "There is nothing we can do."

Harry sighed in relief, a bright light radiating around his eyes. The door opened in front of him and Harry’s jaw dropped, gaping at the gorgeous creature in front of him.

"Do you mind?" The Veela asked demandingly. "I’m trying to sleep here."

"Mr Potter...can you tell me what it feels like to victimise lesser-ranked magical creatures?"

Harry stared at the Veela, then the reporters that had manifested in the hallway.

"I hate you all," he said.

*

 _It’s official, our former saviour has declared his hatred for magical creatures. A poor centaur couple, desperately seeking shelter from the worst snowstorm to grace the French landscape in decades, was denied shelter when the Potter couple showed up at the last moment demanding a room._

 _A Veela couple, booked into the hotel in advance, informed us that the Potters displayed a distinct lack of manners, demanding shelter in a room the Veelas had already occupied._

 _Good to know what’s representing us, dear readers! Keep tuning in for more etiquette breaches._

 _  
**~Squid.**   
_

*

"I need a shower," Ginny said, glaring at him. Harry blanched, brushing his dusty fingers across her knuckle, letting go before he could make her as dirty as he was.

"I’m sorry."

"I look like a Muggle vacuu-thingy has exploded on me."

Harry wished that he hadn’t taught her the function of his Aunt’s vacuum cleaner, or given in so easily to her obsessive tidiness.

"I know it’s not perfect," Harry asserted. A cockroach scuttled across the battered linoleum floor and he winced: even with magic, he wasn’t entirely sure they were legally allowed to grow that big. "This wasn’t how I meant our honeymoon to go."

Ginny sighed and Harry felt her breath dance across his cheek. He turned his mouth to her, pressing his lips against her temple, her cheek, her lips. "Oh, Harry," she said ruefully, a resigned smile on her face as she snaked an arm around his waist. "I love you, I do. But you’re hopeless."

He couldn’t disagree. He was hopeless and he loved her hopelessly. It was as much an apology a gruff admission, the words he found it so hard to say. "Yeah. I, uh. Love you too."

"Good to know," Ginny grumbled. She slanted a glance at him that would have had him quaking in his boots, had he lost his mind entirely enough to buy and then wear them. "You could have told me before, of course."

This was true too. It was true because she was beautiful, determined, strong and funny and because no matter what, she never cried. He had many reasons to love her and he had never vocalised a single one of them.

"It’s not that bad," he said hopefully, _feeling_ the wrath of Hermione descend on him for the lie. It was that bad: the walls were peeling, the floor was sagging and Merlin’s drooping prick was that an Acromantula? "Tell me why we’re here again?"

It was a frustrated, rhetorical question. Anyone else would have ignored him. Ginny was incapable of being anyone else. "They had a vacancy and believed me when I told them if a reporter crossed the front step of this hotel I’d hex it so everyone else who stayed here would turn into a particularly disgruntled snail."

"That would explain it," Harry agreed, wanting very much to lead them to the bed and utterly sure that if he did something terrible would happen that would ensure his balls shrivelled up or her hair would fall out and be woven into the next uncomfortable bedspread or they would both realise that their eyebrows had been replaced with hungry flobberworms.

Ginny followed his gaze and shuddered. "No," she said certainly, emphatically. "I’m not going near that bed. I’m sure it’s cursed. I’m not sure you and I know who did it, but I know it’s cursed and I’m not using it."

"I don’t blame you," Harry said. In a mad dash through narrow Italian streets, taking the last room at the first available Muggle boarding house that had a _posto vacante_ sign out front had seemed like a brilliant idea. He thought, in retrospect, that he should have taken note of the fact that the sign was lopsided, peeling, had a date of 13.07.1954 and resisted all attempts at magical translations.

"It is what it is," Ginny grimaced. Harry decided, firmly and intractably, that he was not allowed to make travel plans. From now on, either Ginny would make the arrangements or they would apparate blindly and assume that any splinching would be far superior to _Il Bel Fiore_. "We just need to make the best of it."

"The best of it will have to be the floor," Harry blurted. If he could have bludgeoned himself in that moment he would have; anything to stop his irrepressible mouth. "It’s the only thing that’s not going to eat us."

The glare Ginny sent his way could have melted steel. He was rather glad she hadn’t given it to the floor; no doubt the sagging would have given way to outright retreat. "Fine," she said shortly. "Fine. It’ll be the floor. Now strip."

"Yeah," Harry agreed, loosening the zipper on his grimy sweater. "Wait, what?"

"We’ve been married the better part of a week," Ginny determined, yanking the band out of her ponytail roughly. "We’ve toured the most luxurious hotels in Europe and ended up in a room that I wouldn’t give to the ghoul in our attic. _I’ve had enough._ I’m sick of sneaking around and snatching unsatisfying moments. We’re going to have sex. Then we’re going to snuggle. When we get up in the morning we are going to have breakfast and read the paper. Now _get undressed_."

Harry didn’t. He stepped forward and grabbed her around the waist, tugging her slender form to press against him in warm and naughty ways.

Ginny pushed him away and forwent zippers, pulling her shirt over her head. Harry followed suit; it seemed easier and, frankly, if he didn’t touch her properly soon more than the hemline of his favourite winter shirt would break.

Clothes had always seemed like such an insurmountable boundary; when they were in public it meant they could barely touch, lest they both get so excited they would make obvious their passion for each other. In private they had been the breach between the desire to be with each other, normal and loving, a proper, standard couple and the need to _be_ with each other, tearing and panting and far too quickly torn away.

Now they vanished; thrown and draped and tossed. Harry stood in front of his wife, hard, eyes skimming over her flushed face and tightened nipples, the soft concave of her belly. He couldn’t bear to look closer without touching her and held out his arms in a silent request for contact.

Ginny smiled, gamely and stepped close, allowing Harry to run a short longing hand down her side.

In the moment before the world collapsed Harry thought he heard a muffled curse of "oh screw it" and an exclamation of a vaguely familiar spell. The sagging floor shook and groaned then collapsed under them. Harry reached instinctively for Ginny trying to push her out of the way, succeeding only in having her weight land on top of him as they fell heavily to the floor of the room below them.

Choking on the dust and debris Harry waved at the air dreamily. His head cleared slowly and as he was able to focus again a face began to form in front of him.

"Dennis?" He asked thickly, becoming glaringly aware of their nudity. "Dennis Creevey?"

The man’s sneer convinced Harry that he couldn’t possibly be clothed enough; Ginny’s outraged exclamation convinced him that if Dennis Creevey dared to look at his wife’s naked form true bloodshed would ensure.

Harry had been a brilliant seeker; the speed in which Ginny located a sheet, stood and whipped it around her proved that he would never have made it in the big leagues. "What?" She asked coldly to the younger brother of a boy who had, Harry realised belatedly and was instantly sorry for, been in her year. "Are you doing, Dennis?"

"Getting the scoop," Dennis said cheerfully. Harry, interrupted in remorse for a boy he had had a great deal of respect for, froze. Ginny, who could hex an unsuspecting target from one hundred metres away, did not. Where she had drawn her wand from was puzzling; on first thought he decided he didn’t want to know. On second thought, he decided he very much wanted to know.

The important part of the situation, he quickly reminded himself, was how threateningly that wand was now pointed at a civilian.

"Please don’t," Harry said, echoed by Dennis.

"Why not?" Ginny asked darkly.

"Because I don’t have the galleons to bail you out of Azkaban," Harry said, pleadingly.

"Because the people deserve to know the truth," Dennis said indignantly.

"You’re not helping yourself," Harry hissed. Ginny glared at them both; Harry cupped his hand around his unmentionables and contemplated hiding behind Dennis. Colin would never have done this, Harry was quite loyal in that thought. The flash of the camera that made him feel painfully exposed, he could not excuse at all: Colin would certainly have done that.

"Dennis," Ginny said sharply. Harry turned his head in just the right amount of time to be hit in the face by a pair of pants. Harry took the boon from the universe at face value; the tightness of the waist and the spare nine centimetres at the pant hem was cooling, not an indication that they were too small, he decided firmly. "Explain, now."

"I’m giving my readers what they want," the flaxen haired man said defensively. "They deserve the truth."

"This isn’t the truth!" Harry sputtered. He’d read every headline, every claim. He know, with righteous outrage, that beyond the base facts, none of their honeymoon had been at all true. "The journalists have been making stuff up..."

"I have not," Dennis yelled. Harry barely had the strength of mind to _accio_ Ginny’s wand before irreparable damage was done. "It all had basis in fact!"

Harry ignored Ginny’s furious "it did not!". He’d counted Colin as a friend. He couldn’t understand just how much he had misjudged the boy’s younger brother.

"It did too," Dennis raged. "I saw every bit of it for myself. I planned a good deal of it, in fact. Do you have any idea how many galleons it cost to set this up? And Colin always said..."

"You did _what_?" Ginny hissed.

"You didn’t do this all for Colin?" Harry asked, stupidly. He knew it was stupid: Ginny looked at him queerly and Dennis looked as though he would hit him, if Harry were a little bit less naked.

"Colin had a dream," Dennis snapped, his eyes glittering a pale, empty blue. "Someone had to fulfil it."

Harry wanted to rage, to complain, storm and object until his voice was hoarse from use. It was Ginny who stopped him, her face glittering fiercely, the same expression that Hermione assumed when confronted with oppression, injustice and Ministry departments with a lack of union.

"I’m so sorry about that," Ginny said; Ginny who had been seventeen when Colin hadn’t and who had managed, by luck only, to survive the destruction that had taken Colin away.

"This was what he wanted to do," Dennis muttered and Harry tugged his pants up determinedly. "It was his dream."

"So you figured you were so right you’d call yourself Squid?" Harry asked rudely, and refused, on principal, to balk when Dennis glared at him.

"That squid saved my life on my first day at Hogwarts," Dennis said coldly, crossing his arms over his chest. "At least someone in that school wanted to save the students."

Harry bowed his head, quietly. He couldn’t disagree with what Dennis said, even as he was unable to agree with it. He’d _wanted_ to save everyone; had tried his very best. He supposed it was his fault that best wasn’t enough. He had thought he had gotten over that a long time before now, deciding the pang in his chest meant both that he was wrong and that, contrarily, he knew that there was no other choice he could have made.

Letting it go was his only option; if he’d allowed the guilt he felt to continue to consume him, he never would have lived to this age.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, closing his eyes for a brief moment. "I'm sorry that Colin died, and that I couldn't save him. But I'm not going to live my life feeling guilty for that. I did the best I could."

Dennis turned away and didn't answer. Harry contemplated going to him, but keeping his pants up was enough of a battle. He looked around for something to support them, cursing when his fumbling grasp slipped for a moment and they dropped to his feet.

A bright flash went off, blinding him. Of all the rules Harry had for interviews, "wearing clothes" should have been the one he remembered.

*

 _Tragic, faithful readers. A carefully planned honeymoon came to naught. This reporter witnessed it in person: the very moment when our newly married couple gave up and went home. A divorce soon to follow? Stay tuned and I’ll let you know._

 _For those who want more detail, feel free to subscribe to Squid’s Inalienable Truth! All subscribers will be able to view an exclusive interview with the newlyweds themselves._

 _  
**~Squid**   
_

*

It had been Ginny who apparated first. She had listened to Dennis’ explanations and laughed, briefly. Then she’d smiled at Harry, quickly and full of sadness, the magical *crack* of apparition the only sign she had left him. Harry followed her because of the sadness and the furrow of her brow, the nearly invisible frown and because he had nowhere else to go.

He was meant to have a destination in mind, but she was his destination. It turned out that was enough. She was in his backyard, _their_ backyard, the small house in Hogsmeade he had bought because it was magical enough for her and had no taunting childhood memories for him.

She was standing in the garden, late evening rain highlighting her bright hair. Her back was to him, shoulders shaking and he had pulled her into his arms before he had noticed moving. "It’s all right," he said, awkwardly patting her back. "If you...you know...want to cry or something."

She pushed him back and paced, leaving furious tracks in the wet grass. "Over this?" She rasped, lip curling in to a laugh. "Over a fucking holiday? Not happening."

"I didn’t mean..." Harry started, agitated, flattening his hair roughly. "I just meant that it was okay if..."

"Okay?" Ginny spat. "It’s okay with you if I cry? Like I needed your _permission_?"

"I didn’t say that," Harry objected. It felt like he was in quicksand, every word yanking more of the ground out from under him and he couldn’t figure out which part he was doing wrong. "I just...I don’t know, all right? I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said it. I don’t get why you’re so upset."

"I cried for _him_ ," Ginny hissed, curling her arms over her stomach. "I cried for him and I cried for you. I won’t cry for anything else, not if it can be helped."

Harry held his arms out to her wordlessly, stunned. He dropped them when she didn’t come, her face turned away as she rocked back and forth. "I’m sorry, Ginny," he said, moving forward slowly. She shook her head and Harry froze, wishing he know, just this once, which words would be the right ones.

"Don’t apologise," Ginny said tonelessly. Harry instantly panicked, regretting for the first time that he hadn’t read Ron’s tomes on how to charm witches. Then she sighed, shook her head and smiled ruefully. She held her arms out as he had. "C’mere, clueless."

Harry went, pulling her close to him. She smelt like cold winter rain and he could taste it on his tongue when he licked a stripe off her neck and felt her shudder against him.

He hadn’t been thinking about sex, not at first. He’d wanted to keep her warm from the ever-heavier rain. The kisses had been incidental, echoes of a hundred snatched moments in this house, ones he knew were about to end and that he had wanted desperately to prolong. He’d forgotten what it was to have time, not having to worry about parents or friends "dropping by", suspicious questions and harried excuses.

It only occurred to him when Ginny coyly began stroking his chest and he froze, hearing the faint tickle of a mirror crashing around their ears. Ginny laughed and Harry echoed it, shaking his head at how stupid he was; how many kisses had this garden seen? What was one bathroom?

Harry leaned down to kiss his wife, stroking his lips across hers in a gentle rhythm until both of them were gasping for breath. When she didn’t fight him off he trailed his kissed gently down her collar bone, paying careful attention to a miscellaneous scar he had mapped before, but could not for the life of him place the origin of.

Ginny kissed him back just as fervently; for a moment Harry would have called it a competition, and a moment later he was sure he was content to lose as her lips reached his neck and Harry settled the contest by collapsing on to the chilled ground and bringing Ginny down with him.

"Cheeky," she laughed, tossing her hair away from the pool of water surrounding their prone bodies. Harry smiled hollowly, pressing his face to her chest in despairing devotion, sure that, if needed, he could remain innocent of the breast hovering dangerously close to his mouth. Ginny’s fingers tangled themselves through his hair and Harry tilted his face to her, smiling softly. "Nice try."

As Harry tried to puzzle out what she meant, Ginny pushed gently on his head, pushing him downwards until his mouth was level with one of her nipples. Harry chuckled, pressing his mouth to the dark pink protrusion, flicking out his tongue to taste the salt of her skin, diluted by the fresh winter rain.

"How’s that?" He asked rhetorically. Ginny sighed as Harry pressed his tongue in a more careful pattern around her tightening nipple and Harry smiled around it. He heard her try to form words and made a decision to cut off each one with his tongue, pulling into his repository of memories of every time they’d made love, and every time he’d made her gasp.

"Oh, that’s not fair," Ginny hissed, hoarsely. Harry took that as encouragement and laved his tongue gently over her breast, only moving to repeat his actions on its twin when he could sense that she was truly out of breath. It was hardly fun if she was still coherent.

"Sure it’s fair," Harry said, entertained. Ginny huffed her breath out indignantly and Harry rewarded her incoherence with a light scraping of his teeth over her nipple. Ginny’s hips bucked underneath him and Harry would have laughed in triumph if he weren’t so busy breathing in the silky scent of her skin.

" _!!!?!_ ," Ginny said decisively, and Harry laughed, tilting his head to the grey-clouded sky. Pushing her chest against his, Ginny’s big, velvety brown eyes looked at him in desire and Harry gave up his plan to taunt her into release and instead kissed her like they were both sixteen again and she had just won the Quidditch match he had hated himself for not being able to attend.

"Stop that," Harry said, weakly, realising that kissing his way down her stomach was likely not the best way to convince her that he was right. He decided that he didn’t mind as he swirled his tongue around her belly button and alternated kissing and passing his tongue over her skin until he met the join of her legs and resolved that control was overrated.

He had done this before, briefly; so many of their previous encounters had attempted to go this way and ended with an urgent tearing off of each other’s clothes that he had a decent idea of the basics and no idea whatsoever of the specifics.

Instead of retracing old decisions, Harry decided that he would go by the instinct that had rarely failed him before. When he stroked his tongue over her inner folds and she gasped, Harry repeated his actions over again until Ginny was calling his name out loud. When he sucked lightly on a soft bud of skin he found and she bucked her hips into his mouth, he took it as a good sign. The unbeatable sign of his success came when he slid two uncertain fingers inside her and salved his tongue over the same bump of skin that had so fascinated him and Ginny cried out loudly, her fingers tugging painfully on his wet hair.

She was still shaking when Harry raised his head to her mouth, and without thinking he pushed his lips to hers, the warmth of her and the coldness of the raindrops mingling prettily. Ginny kissed him back and Harry was sure that there was something taboo about the taste of herself against her lips, but in this moment it didn’t matter, when Ginny was shaking underneath him, his need pressing against her thighs and her mouth thrumming against his own.

It was the soft, content smile on Ginny’s face that made Harry pull away. He could feel his own need throbbing painfully against her heated skin, but the satisfied expression decided that that was enough for him; it was important enough, he supposed, that she had had some form of indulgence during this trip, when it had been so carelessly denied before now.

He didn’t protest when she rolled them over, smiling lazily at him. He returned the smile, just as sluggishly, as she pushed him into the soggy ground, serenely pinning his arms over his head. Harry relaxed himself, not willing to fight against her arguably more powerful strength.

The mud under Harry’s wrists curled over him, fastening him to the ground. He looked at Ginny curiously and she smiled at him tiredly, mischievously. Harry was about to protest how tired she must when the mud restraints pulled more tightly at him, and Harry looked at her in confusion.

"I want this," Ginny informed him surely as she spread her legs. Harry caught his breath as she brushed against his cock and was rewarded with a grin that was as equally roguish as it was exhausted.

"Ginny," Harry said insistently, straining his arms against his restraints in an attempt to embrace her.

"I want this," Ginny repeated, and positioned herself carefully over Harry’s thighs, chest breathing in deeply as she watched him clearly. "I’ve wanted this for days."

Harry didn’t have a response to that; instead he bucked under Ginny as she, painfully slowly, sheathed him inside her with an expression of perfect determination. "Gaarg," Harry said clearly, deciding that Ginny’s shoulders shaking in soft laughter was a good thing. Ginny, apparently, agreed; she raised herself, just a little, over Harry’s swollen cock and lowered herself again, exhaling in relief when she heard Harry moan in satisfaction.

"Oh, Merlin, _please_ ," Harry told Ginny seriously, sucking in his breath in lieu of being able to move his hips. "Gin..."

"Please, what?" Ginny asked him shakily, pulling herself up gradually, her smile quivering gorgeously. Without waiting for him to answer she thrust herself back down, and Harry cried out as the warmth of her enveloped him. Harry wanted to beg, he intended to, but before he was able to say a word Ginny set a slow pace, sliding up and down his shaft steadily, her face shifting between desire and satisfaction.

" _Please_ ," Harry pleaded, struggling against his bonds in earnest.

Ginny didn’t change her pace, slowly raising and lowering herself over him. Harry, struggling pointlessly against his bonds, shuddered as he was covered in her wet warmth, quivering with every thrust that he wasn’t able to complete.

"I love you," Ginny informed him, and Harry nodded in agreement. She moved above him carefully, and countless protestations of affection were forced down his throat as he watched his wife desperately.

"Ginny, please," Harry pleaded, hopelessly. "Come on..."

He had never been this inarticulate before now. They’d spend many days in this garden previously, when he had wanted her so desperately, and known that their time was about to run out.

"Please what?" Ginny asked composedly. Harry cursed her for being able to be tranquil while her warmth surrounded his cock slowly, warmly and goadingly.

" _Please,_ " Harry begged, plaintively, battling against his muddle restraints.

Ginny laughed, gently and bewitchingly. "That’s it?" She asked seductively, her hips bucking enticingly against his. "That's all you have to say?"

"I love you!" Harry cried out hoarsely. His bonds broke as he did and he sighed in relief.

"About time," she told him sternly, her brief leer breaking the tension. Harry grabbed Ginny tightly by the hips, grinning as she smiled, bucking his hips deeply inside her. He wanted to repeat his sentiments, but it was so much easier to thrust his hips upwards and catch his breath with each plunge, nearly gasping as he moved his way towards his release.

"I love you," he repeated pointlessly, his hips driving upwards to meet the short, swift, thrusts of the determined woman above him.

"Baby," she told him warmly, her beautiful brown eyes dancing in entertainment. "I know that."

Harry’s laugh turned into a gasp as his cock stroked, softly, against her inner folds, and he cried out in pleasure as he came. He wrapped his arms around Ginny gently, pulling her down to rest on top of him, letting himself sink further into the saturated ground as the rain drizzled softly against their exposed skin.

*

 _And that marks the end of our epic journey._

 _I hope that, loyal readers, you have enjoyed the trip through the lives of the rich and famous as they travelled their way across Europe._

 _Don’t forget to check our exclusive photos! Subscribers of the Daily Prophet are able to view pictures of the long overdue consummation of the Potter marriage after the spell..._

 _  
**~Squid**   
_

*

"I’m going to kill him," Harry said grimly.

"Not if I get there first." Ginny glared down at the paper threateningly, wand already in her hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Please review [here](http://community.livejournal.com/smutty_claus/154799.html?mode=reply).


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